Book lover opens up

J. Sara Paulk, director of the Houston County Public Library System, discusses what reading means to her and it it impacts our lives.

Residence: Perry

Occupation: Director, Houston County Public Library System

Q: Aug. 9 is National Book Lover’s Day, are you a book lover?

A: Yes indeed; all my life.

Q: No surprise. How did your love for books start?

A: My mother was a librarian, a school librarian. She instilled in me a love for reading from an early age. I don’t really remember when I couldn’t read.

Q: Where was this?

A: Rochelle in Wilcox County. I’ve been up and down the East Coast in my professional life and have my master’s degree in library science from Florida State University.

Q: Is there a difference in a love for reading, a love for books and the new slant the digital age is taking?

A: I think you can point to differences but there are mainly similarities. It has been proven people’s brains are being altered by how they read on the internet because they’re always clicking on to the next thing then the next and next and next. I don’t think jumping from one thing quickly to the next is particularly good and there’s a movement back to deep reading. In deep reading you’re transported and can give your mind time for consideration and contemplation. It gives better understanding of the material, of a situation or character being presented and the time and setting they’re presented in. Deep reading helps you understand the familiar and process things whether fiction or factual. That as opposed to flashing by stories and news and information online. Books — traditional books and a print format — do a better job of allowing deep reading. That’s what they’re for.

Q: So you’re not keen on digital books?

A: Well, I’m not about how we read on the internet but I do love e-books and my digital reader. A good novel is awesome as an e-book or traditional book. The fact you can take 40 or 50 e-books on your reader is remarkable. I also love that you can download audio books or hear CDs in your car. The fact these formats are so useful to people without full use of their vision is a wonderful thing. And of course, there’s access to all this through the library.

Q: You believe each has its place?

A: I do. Depending on your purpose there’s a carrier and format best suited to it and to your liking. I know my mother would love e-books. She’d fall asleep reading and if she had an e-book it would have kept her place. Plus, as her eyesight worsened it would have been so useful as an adaptive tool. E-books aren’t just for techies anymore but I don’t believe physical books are going away, either. Their physical form is better for a lot of things like flipping back and forth between text and maps or other material within a book. And for children’s books, they tend to be much better. You can have a larger format and manipulative books with their pop ups and shapes and holes that children love. And we have what are called board books that can take all kinds of abuse.

Q: Regardless of format, it sounds like you’re real love is for what’s inside, true?

A: Content is the thing. Having access to shelves and shelves of information or being able to travel and get caught up in other places, other times and other worlds is the thing—getting lost in what you’re reading whether fact or fiction. I’ll never be a French nurse in World War I or a Spartan warrior in the Battle of 300 or a post-construction freed slave but I can read about it and enter those worlds and those lives and have experiences in that way. It builds understanding and empathy.

Q: What were your favorite stories as a child?

A: I loved the Little House on the Prairie books by Laura Ingalls Wilder but I read all the time. My mother steered me toward great, award-winning literature. I loved Nancy Drew, too. Who doesn’t love a crime-solving teenage girl? Maybe boys, but they had the Hardy Boys.

Q: What do Houston County libraries do to instill a love of books now?

A: We start with the very young with programming and activities to help them enjoy reading and develop a love for it. We have literacy-based programs and our summer reading programs for all ages. The more children read the more their learning skills develop and, honestly, the better chance they have in life. Did you know prison officials project the need for future prisons based on fourth-grade reading levels?

Q: Your summer reading program is ending, how did it go?

A: Over 5,000 came to programs and we checked out more than 40,000 books to children and young adults in June.

Q: How many items do the Warner Robins, Perry and Centerville libraries check out annually?

A: Our year runs from July to June so we just finished a year where 461,000 items were checked out. Books, CDs, DVDs, all our formats. You can get e-books and even check out passes to Go Fish, state parks, the Atlanta zoo and other things. Through our association with the nearly statewide PINES library system, library users have access to more than 10 million items.

Q: Are you happy about the future of books, reading and the availability of information?

A: We live in amazing times. We have a book kept in a glass case — the original 1859 ordinances and city charter for Perry — and we just had it digitized. Its form and information spans traditional and digital technology. I’m really proud that Aug. 2 we cooperatively unveiled a digital, searchable version of the Houston Home Journal going all the way back to 1877 and up to 1990. It’s online at www.gahistoricnewspapers.galileo.usg.edu and is part of the Digital Library of Georgia.

This story was originally published August 5, 2017 at 3:32 PM with the headline "Book lover opens up."